Whitten e



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

WHITTEN E. KIDD. OF NEV YORK, Y.

MOLD FOR PRESSING BONNET-FRONTS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 11,996, dated November28, 1854; Ressued January 13, 1857, No. 421.

To all whom t may concern.'

. Be it known that I, VVHITTEN E. KIDD, of the cit-y, county, and Stateof New York, have invented, made, and applied to use certain new anduseful Improvelnents in Molds or Shapes for Pressing Buckram or WillowBonnet-Fronts; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full,clear, and exact description of the construct-ion and opera tion of thesame, reference being had to the annexed drawing, making part of thisspecification, wherein- Figure l, is a plan of the mold as in use; Fig.2, is a plan of the lower mold; and Fig. 3, is a vertical sectionthrough line 1, l.

The like marks of reference denote the same parts in all the figures.

In the construction of buckram or similar frames for bonnets the frontis made of a separate piece from the crown, the two being attached bymoisture causing the gummy substance in said frames to adhere whenpressed together with a hot iron.

In order to form the front piece into the necessary curved shape withthe lower parts or points of said front turned off at a curve, a mold orshape has to be used, said mold being heated and having another mold ordie to fit the same between which the dam pened buckram or othermaterial is pressed and dried, said mold acting on a flat strip o-fbuckram to form the ends curved and then the strip is bent around intothe conical form by hand and attached to the crown. Solid conical dieshave also been. used to form the fronts in a conical shape, but in thiscase the front cannot be pressed with curved ends on account of thedifficulty of holding the strip in the requiredposition, as the diecovered the whole strip.

My invention as distinguished from the foregoing consists inconstructing the dies in such a manner as to be adapted for pressing apeculiar compound curved shape or front and all or nearly all sizes offronts can be pressed by one pair of dies, by so forming the upper diethat it is adapted to cover all but a Very small piece of the points ofsaid front, which are held by the workman, and that, whether the frontsbe large or small.

a, is a table or bench o-n which a circular iron plate with acylindrical flanch is placed.

c, is a mold of sheet copper of suicient thickness formed, into therequired shape of the bonnet front, whatever that shape may be. Theupper part of this mold is left open so that a heater d, of any suitableconstruction can be placed therein.

e, is a mold or matrix constructed so as to fit closely into the mold c,and this mold is attached by bands 2, 2, to an arm or. lever f, which:is fitted and actuated in any usual manner so as to give the requiredpressure on the material when laid on the lower mold.

3, 3, are pins to which heaters may be hung should they be required, butI have generally found that the heater d, (confined by the cover 4) issuficient to heat both molds by the conducting power of the copper orother material. By reference to the dotted lines in Fig. 2, it will beseen that when a strip of buckram or other material (cut out in theshape shown in Fig. 4:) is laid on said mold, the ends or pointsapproach each other. Now with a large sized bonnet, the strips are widerand longer, consequently thepoints require to be farther apart, andfarther out on the mold as shown by the outer dotted lines, but withsmaller sizes the strip of material has to be so placed that the endsapproach each other nearer, and in consequence of the strip beingnarrower, require to be closer in on the mold. I therefore mark on saidmold gage points 5, 5, to which the points of the dii'erent sizes arebrought, which determine the position and accurately gage the samemaking a uniform and perfect shape. In order there- .l

fore to enable the workman to hold onto the very ends of the front,whatever its shapemay be, I cut out of the upper mold a curved openingg, passing about half an inch inside all the gage points when the diesare together, thus pressing all sizes of bonnet fronts and leaving onlya very small piece thereof outside said opening for the fingers to guideand sustain the front; with some charcter of fronts it may be necessaryto guide the ends of the buckram by marks o-n the mold c, in theposition shown at 6, 6, Figs. l and 2. V

I do not claim a conical mold as this has before been used, but I am notaware that a mold with the curved opening g, covering all the front, (ofwhatever size) but the Very ends, by which the Workman guides ever thesized front may be, substantially 10 the strips, has ever before beenused, as specified.

Therefore What I desire, t0 secure by Let- In Witness whereof AI havehereunto set ters Patent is, my signature this twentieth day of OctoberI claim the method herein described of 1854. constructing the die e,With the curved open- WHITTEN E. KIDD. ing g, in its side for thepurpose of enabling Witnesses: the Workman to guide and steady the mate-LEMUELYW. SERRELL, rial of Which the front is composed, What- THOMAS G.HAROLD.

[FIRST PRINTED 1913.]

